Moles have set into my lawns and really need some ideas on getting them to move somewhere else..yes grubs... yes we have red wiggled under the oak trees but my back lawn is like a cushion to walk on...help need ideas.thanku

The truth about moles and voles is that you have to learn to live with them. You can chase them away but they will only go as far as your neighbors yard and come back when you let your guard down. You can kill them but there are 10 others ready to take their place.

"The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice. It speaks in the language of hope; It speaks in the language of trust; It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion. It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. But always, it is the same voice. It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us, And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born. It is the small, still voice that says: We are one. No matter the blood; No matter the skin; No matter the world; No matter the star; We are one. No matter the pain; No matter the darkness; No matter the loss; No matter the fear; We are one. Here, gathered together in common cause. we agree to recognize this singular truth, and this singular rule: That we must be kind to one another, because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future. We are one."

The best way I got mine to move over to the neighbor's yard was to go around daily for a while, sticking the hose down the holes and flooding their tunnels. They decided it was not a good place to make homes and have babies and moved all the way across the street (from what I could tell).

They usually come in the first place because you have a food source in your lawn. Grubs or other insects are what they eat (not the roots of the plants as some people think) so a treatment with a granular insecticide might be in order after you get them to move out. Right now if you have a big infestation, you need to flood the tunnels to drive them away. They are nesting and having babies down under there.

After this, when they start to come back again, just flood again for a few days and they'll go elsewhere. But keep a watchful eye and hit them as soon as you see new holes.

Elaine

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." –Winston Churchill

If you amend your beds and have moles, you will continue to have them, period.

Here we don't have star nose moles, or aquatic moles, if you have these then I'm not sure how to deal with them.

You can buy all the traps you want, you might get a couple of the offenders but not enough to dent the populations.
To even stand a chance you need travel tunnels, my moles have such healthy feeding grounds here in my yard that they don't make straight travel tunnels, just snaking feeding tunnels
Poisons don't work... Moles don't eat corn or peanuts, poisoned or not... And they can tell the difference between a real worm and a plastic poison worm.
Their burrows are so extensive and winding that flooding them really only makes a mess, the moles don't like to dig in mud so they move elsewhere until things dry up a little, it's nearly impossible to drown them, their home tunnels usually go way down, then curve back up, just like beavers and ground hogs, it traps water and let's it drain off instead of flooding their nest... Same goes for the smoke bombs... The tunnels are just too extensive for the smoke to be effective...

If your really patient, you can setup a ladder or chair In your yard, careful walk down every tunnel, then mow your grass really low... Then carefully and oh so quietly, post up in your spot, and wait until you see the tunnels pushing back up, if you watch real close and wait long enough you'll see it!
If you do, stab a shovel down in front of the movement, moles can't back up very well, (but can move through open tunnels at 5mph, and can dig new tunnels at a rate of up to 2 mph(at that point you can stomp the daylights outta that spot and might kill the bugger, I use 2 shovels, one to block the tunnel and a spade to flip the mole out, then stomp the daylights out of them!
It won't fix the issue, but it'll fix that one mole good!
Might make you feel better, that's about all.

It is possible to train a dog to hunt them in your yard, that's the only way that I know of to fully eliminate the problem... But then you have a dog to deal with...

Moles are most active right after sun up til around 10-11 am and then again around dusk, they go down deep during the heat of the day.
The good news is, they do help your soil by churning it and adding air and organic matter... Organic matter from all the plants they shred with those massive razor sharp claws!

Please tree mail me for trades, I'm ALWAYS actively looking for more new plants, and love to trade!

We had tons of mole tunnels in our yard last year, as did our next door neighbor. She said she had someone spray her lawn for them but apparently it didn't work because this year she still has a lot of mole tunnels while we have very few. We don't use chemicals on our property because we have a dog who thinks he's a goat and he grazes on the grass. When the tunnels appear in the lawn, we just live with the them until the critters decide to move on. I do walk around and tamp down any tunnels whenever I see them but I figure once they rid my lawn of insects they will move on.

My dear sweet mother-in-law who lived to be 97 was an avid organic gardener all her life; she swore that stuffing mole holes with human and pet hair would get rid of them. She would clean her hairbrush as well as her cat's hairbrush and save the hair in large plastic bags, then stuff the hair down the holes as far as she could. Although I have very long hair and I have a golden retriever with long, thick hair I've never tried that method for exterminating moles.

There actually might be something to that!
That method can be semi effective at keeping deer and other critters away from your garden, our stink is so strong that they can smell it on the hair for a long time!
I don't see why it wouldn't work on moles, their sense of smell is known to be excellent!
It's how they hunt, sound snd smell.
Seems like you would need a lot of hair to do all their tunnels but I'm game to try...
You get old hair from the barber shop, if you don't gag on it... Yuck

I forget to mention, you can make an underground cage for some plants by laying hardware cloth down before u plant, buried about 6-8" underground
You must pull the edges up above ground or very close to complet the cage.
If that makes sense...
This does atleast keep them out if your prize plants!

Please tree mail me for trades, I'm ALWAYS actively looking for more new plants, and love to trade!

Dodg?
I happen to have one dog that is good at catching moles. Only problem is, if I let him have his own way, he would dig up a bigger mess than the moles do. The only way it works with (my dog anyway) is to follow what @Swayback said...

"If you're really patient, you can setup a ...chair in your yard, careful walk down every tunnel, then mow your grass really low... Then carefully and oh so quietly, post up in your spot, and wait until you see the tunnels pushing back up, if you watch real close and wait long enough you'll see it!"

At that point, when I see the place that the mole is active, I give the dog permission to dig.

Of course, I will need to start a thread titled "How to pry open the dogs jaws to get him to release the dead mole".

I'm gonna try the hair recommendation from @plantladylin's M-i-L; sounds like good advice and costs nothing.

Wow....thank you for all the good fun on getting rid of moles. Lmao..I like the idea of the hair stuffing in holes.I have done the let's stuff the hose in the hole and flood the tunnels but the worry is it create small sink holes in our backyard.what a time.. I might set the chair back out and be patient because one day I was weed whacking about that time and one popped out and I stomped on it. Maybe vibration got him running. I love all the ideas..I did buy three mole traps and found they were two strong to catch them.it was all I could do to set them and put them in a dug out trench. Nice traps.by Victor. Anyways probably wait till the food source.slows down.

I once watched my dog (a Malamute) track a mole as it ran underground; when the critter came to the surface hole, he lunged faster than you could see and came up with the mole. Which he promptly munched down. Sigh.
We have had some success in convincing the burrowing critters to relocate using those sonic repellers; the battery powered ones work best, but they're getting hard to find. But those are only useful in discouraging them from a small area. I stuck one in a newly prepared bed and they left it alone, and when I found a mound by one of my peonies, I stuck one there and the plant is doing fine. They're still out there in the fields, tho, and on the neighbors' properties. It's an ongoing battle.

Confidence is that feeling you have right before you do something really stupid.